Nov 9-22, 2012

Today’s feast would have created huge problems for Jesus’ earliest followers.

Scripture scholars and church historians often point out the conflicts the historical Jesus and his first disciples experienced when their Jewish reform movement came into contact with the Roman Empire.

It’s impossible to understand today’s first and third readings without an appreciation of the idea of biblical apocalyptic literature.

The Bible isn’t a book, it’s a library. Not only does it include books written by different authors at various times, but, like any library, it contains works composed in different genres. We need only walk into our local library and look at the names above the bookshelves to surface those genres: history, fiction, reference, biography, etc.